Eye of Quetzalcoatl
by Akktri
Summary: A mystery lies beyond the eye...
1. Chapter 1: Pilot's Ring

When the alarm went off, it was still dark. A series of red numbers glared at me from the shadows.

Four o' clock.

My house is as close at the airport as it can possibly get, but it still takes an hour to drive up to the employee entrance, get coffee, and settle in the pilot's chair.

My wife, being used to it, does not wake, drooling with her mouth hanging open, limbs in a haphazard sprawl, one grasping the smooth corner post of the bed frame like the wood of the cross.

She reminded me of a blonde version of the witch from Robin Hood. I swear she looked better when I married her.

Our bedroom is dominated by her things. There's a crucifix over the bed, and a scary framed picture of the crucified Jesus that opens and shuts his eyes when you walk back and forth in front of it. Another wall holds that mass produced garage sale painting of Jesus kneeling in front of a rock. I've seen that thing everywhere.

Who'd want to have sex with those things staring at you?

Then we have the framed family photographs.

Sigh.

After two kids, Irene basically became a celibate nun. She said we were nearing the End Times, and the bible said "woe to those who nursed a child during those days."

That was during the Iran Contra affair. The dates and methods of the apocalypse changed several times in her mind since that date, but the cold fish remained a cold fish. I think she just didn't want more kids. Not that I blame her.

When we first married, I suggested contraceptives, but she refused, saying it was sinful.

After Chloe, she temporarily changed her mind, but I guess we got defective products, because along came Raymie.

That's when the pilot light to our bed went out.

I didn't bother waking Irene. She'd know I was gone when my things were gone. She'd understand.

It's too damned early anyway.

I grabbed my things from the dressers, underwear, socks, my pilot's hat, wallet and keys, then slid open the closet to select one of several uniforms, hand pressed by my wife.

We weren't lovers, we were roommates. A second mom.

I showered, dressed, ate breakfast while alone, staring across the table at a cheese-tastic painting of a fifty foot tall Jesus knocking on the side of a skyscraper. To one side, the window box was lined with a row of feeble flowers, a symbol of my emaciated marital relationship.

I scowled at a framed picture of kittens, crunching my Honey Bunches of Oats. I resolved to never eat that shit again. That, and that bland Sunbelt granola she's always getting. I could swear they made it in a test tube.

We live in a split level. We have a garage, but it's full of recyclables, exercise equipment, unfinished building projects, and Daisy, our loudmouthed beagle. My shiny black BMW, therefore, is parked out front. It's just as well, since the noise of the door opener would wake the whole house and set Daisy off baying.

The moment I have the door open and climb in, I feel a book poking me in the ass. I pick it up, something by Joel Osteen. _Ten Prayers for Material Wealth_. In the seat opposite, I find _Woman, Get Back in the Kitchen_ by T.D. Jakes. On the dash, a book called _A Thief in the Night: God's Plan for the Coming Apocalypse_. The tagline on the bottom said, "The Lord is coming in 2017. Will you be ready?"

I picked up the book and laughed.

God.

I threw it in the back.

I clicked on the radio, and (surprise!) a preacher named Woodrow started rambling about King David and Mephibosheth, whoever that was. I quickly turned it to the rock station.

Alice in Chains. Much better.

At the airport, I parked in the employee lot, and stared at my wedding ring, thinking about Hattie.

I saw the woman every day.

Young, blonde, long shapely legs.

Recently they seem to have gotten longer.

Shorter skirts, smaller uniforms.

When she first started getting assigned to my flights, I rolled her eyes at her name. Why would you torture a kid with a name like that? It was a grandmother's name, and I was mystified about why even a grandmother would want to be named after headwear.

But when I saw those lean muscular thighs brushing by my pilot's chair, and looked up at those perky breasts, I decided she could call herself anything she wanted and I wouldn't care.

At first, it was innocent.

We were coworkers.

We tolerated each other.

I pretended not to be looking at her like a piece of meat, and she, well, randomly rubbed my back, from time to time put on strange leggings, black leather with holes running down the back, or leopard print...like she were trying to get my attention.

Then came winter. Our plane was grounded for repairs in Denver.

We ate, on discount, at one of those fancy airport bar and grills.

We had a snowball fight in the parking lot.

Drank hot chocolate in the pilot's lounge.

It was kind of a date.

We found out we had more in common than we thought. We both loved sports, both went to the same community college without realizing it. Both love pets.

"So," she had said. "You're married."

"What?" I blurted in dismay.

It was at this point that I decided I really didn't want her to know that particular bit of information.

"Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Your ring," she said, pointing to my hand.

With a nervous laugh, I answered, "That's just a class ring."

She gave me a funny look, then said, "Can I see it?"

Swallowing, I stuck my hand under the table, taking my class ring off my left hand, _and_ the one off my right, handing her the class ring. I did this so subtly and fast that Houdini would have been impressed.

"Oh," she said, almost with a note of disappointment.

When I slipped the wedding ring in the pocket of my coat, I suddenly noticed I still had, within my possession, the silver ring I'd received from the airline for my many years of service. It had been there for months.

Too small. I had intended to get it resized, but kept forgetting.

I slipped it on my left to preserve the deception.

"So you're still..."

I nodded. "Single."

We had hotel rooms, but, you know, we just met, so nothing happened. The plane got fixed and we took off.

I finally got that gift ring resized.

I took her to a Cubs game once. Lied and told Irene I was `out with the guys.'

We did an international flight, we visited the Louvre.

I never took Irene to the Louvre, but then again, she didn't have the same airline privileges.

I shoved the wedding ring inside the glove compartment beneath the insurance paperwork where no one would see it.

I walked into the employee entrance, passing through security.

"Did you lose the other ring?" one of the smart assed TSA's asked me as I picked up my tray of valuables.

"Yeah," I said. "I've looked everywhere, too."

"Don't tell the wife," he laughed.

Above the flight listings, CNN was showing some wacked out author and his book about ancient Aztec technology, _The Engines of the Ancients_, it was called. Something like that.

I sipped my coffee, reading his drivel on the closed captioning.

Apparently the man wrote several books. _A Pyramid of Time_, _Blood Sports_ and _The Gate of Quetzalcoatl_. He theorized that the Olmecs were actually pioneers of bioterrorism.

I rolled my eyes and looked away.

Even at the ass crack of dawn, the airport was a mob. My uniform got me some space, but I still had to watch my feet to avoid stepping on shoes.

A few yards down, a middle aged Korean woman with glasses and a perm dragged her five year old son up the corridor.

"Hello!" the woman said as she approached me. "My name is Sweetie Rhee. What is your name?"

I was immediately suspicious. All I did was make eye contact and we were already making introductions? What was this? An attempt to garner favors from the pilot?

"Rayford Steele," I said hesitantly. It was pointless because I was already wearing a name pin.

"I see you are watching news," she said.

"Oh?" I replied. "I think that guy's a nut. Probably going after that 2012 angle again."

Seeing a blank look, I added, "Mayan prophecy. Used those Mexican solar calendars you see everywhere to predict the end of the world." I gestured to the airport. Completely intact. "It's 2015! Tadaah!"

I could see the spark plugs weren't making a connection. She changed the subject. "What think you?" she said. "What if world end today? What then? And what after?"

She said this like she already knew the answer to the question before I spoke.

"Uh...I'd be dead?"

"You...do not think there will be life after this one?"

"Well," I said. "The thought _has_ occurred to me that there _should_ be one."

"Do you go to church?"

I nodded.

Great, I thought. It's one of _those_ again.

"What church do you go to?"

"Saint Paul's Christian."

To be honest, I went there only infrequently. I enjoyed my sleep, and sleep ends around eleven A.M. on Sundays. I was what you called a `stay home Baptist.' Of course I wasn't about to tell this woman any of that.

"Are you Christian?" she said.

"I thought that was built into the name of my church."

"Sure," she said with a fake smile. "How do you show your love of Jesus?"

I glanced at my watch. I could either spend the next twenty minutes with this nut, or twenty minutes with Hattie.

"By flying the plane," I blurted. "Excuse me..."

I guzzled the rest of my coffee and pushed through the mob, hurrying down the boarding ramp to my 747.

We had two stewardesses for this flight. Hattie and Sheryl.

Sheryl was a bleach blonde, gave everyone plastic smiles, and spent most her time on Facebook.

Unfriendly. Often gave me the cold shoulder.

Every other sentence out of her mouth was "oh my God."

She was still with U.S. Air because she did a passable job with customers.

When I came in, Sheryl was playing with her phone, as usual.

Hattie was breaking open boxes, stuffing snacks and drinks into carts.

She closed the one she'd been filling and stood up, smiling at me. "Ray!"

"Good morning Hattie," I said. "Looking stunning as usual."

She giggled. "You're looking a bit stunning yourself, Captain Steele."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Sheryl muttered.

Hattie offered me coffee, but I showed her my Starbucks cup.

"We still up for that Lakers game?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I...uh...have to check with the..._pet sitter_, and make sure it's okay with her." I prayed she didn't understand that I really meant my wife.

Hattie nodded. "Gotcha. Well, let me know if it's clear with her. If not, I'll check to see if I can find someone else to sit for you."

Ironic.

"Thanks," I said with a sheepish grin, but I seriously doubted she could just make a call and bring me a replacement wife.

We chatted about sports a bit, about the ridiculous bonus structure they set up for airline employees, then, as people began pushing their way into the cabin, I decided to make my way to the cockpit.

I pushed past the navy blue confetti patterned seats, stopping when I saw a dangling fold out table. I tried to put it back up, but the closing piece was broken. I hoped nobody would sue us.

I glanced at the rows of partly occupied seats with anxiety. Even with the tiny bottles of airline liquor, someone was bound to make an ass of themselves. I just didn't know who yet. The fat black behemoth in floral print, and her kids, were just as likely to bang on the cockpit door as the seedy looking white cowboy reading the Wall Street Journal on the row opposite. Delusions of entitlement know no color.

Ever since September 11th, I've been nervous around Arabs, and I already noticed three of them on this flight. The one I found near the aisle was a dark skinned bearded man with a turban. Already my mind was whirling with theories about what he was typing on his phone.

Then there was the midget with the goatee, piercings and prison tattoos.

I moved onward, entering the narrow passageway that led into first class.

Immediately I found myself being pushed against a simulation wood wall, the lovely face of my favorite stewardess pressing against mine.

I was so shocked that I dropped my coffee, spilling the leftovers on the carpet.

We kissed with enough passion to make me feel both wild and incredibly guilty. I was glad my wife wasn't there to see it.

A finger tapped Hattie's shoulder.

"Excuse me," I heard a strangely familiar southern voice saying.

We broke apart and turned to face this disturbance.

Large head, big chin, greasy black curly hair exploding from the top.

Five hundred dollar suit.

Just like on my wife's books.

"Pardon me, ma'am," said Mr. Osteen. "I've got a friend in the other row, and he's wanting one of those little bottles of Jack Daniels."

"It's only six A.M.," Hattie complained.

"Well maybe he gets nervous on flights. He _is_ in first class."

"Why don't you just pray with him about his alcohol dependence?" I offered.

Osteen sighed. "Smartass," he muttered under his breath. "Look, dammit. It's for me, all right? I get nervous before flights. Now I paid for first class service, so am I going to get my Jack or not?"

Hattie rolled her eyes. "Right away, sir."

And she marched up into the little cubbyhole behind the cockpit.

As I watched her swinging her hips on the way back there, I noticed Osteen doing the same.

"In the parlance of today's poor urban black," he said. "I would definitely `_hit that_.'"


	2. Chapter 2: Missing Persons

I was beginning to suspect that the charismatic saint I saw on TV was nothing but a thin veneer on the real man.

Not surprising, really.

I glanced back in first class and suddenly noticed two more seat occupants: a prolific horror writer, and a scary looking goth in black clothing and makeup like _The Crow_.

Hattie gave Mr. Osteen his requested drink, and as the plane started filling up, we mutually decided that our moment had passed.

She gave me one last parting kiss that left me wanting more, then swished down the aisle to assist passengers with loading bags into overhead compartments.

I stared at the goth punk busy playing with some sort of music software with headphones on, wondering if I'd heard his music on the radio or not.

I decided not, as the station I listened to was a few months out of date with the current trends.

I hoped he wasn't one of those musicians that acted like they were into hard rock but mostly whine about their girlfriends.

No matter. I turned and marched up to the cockpit.

My copilot was Robert Benson, one of those nuts that go to day long church services during the week, to the point in which it caused scheduling problems with HR. The man was such a zealot that it made me think my wife was normal by comparison.

Worse, he never did anything, so we never had much of anything to talk about. He didn't like sports. He didn't watch movies. I guessed he only sat around in his house and read the bible all the time.

Well, that and the news.

He was a thin, slack faced man with slick hair and European features, though he was actually born in the United States. I couldn't decide which I hated more, his narrow minded zealotry (he didn't even celebrate Christmas) or his obsessive veganism.

He sat in the pilot's chair with his face in the paper, sipping coffee. I decided I would need to guzzle some myself to survive his bland personality.

When he noticed me come in, he showed me an article about Arabs blowing up an Israeli hospital. You could swap the article with an article on the same subject written ten years ago and nobody would notice, but he said, "See that? Sign of the Endtimes."

I rolled my eyes. "Everything is a sign of the Endtimes. People have been killing over that piece of sand for centuries."

"This is different," he said. 'The Arabs have a secure footing on the Gaza Strip now. There's a passage in Revelation that says the gentiles will occupy..."

I shook my head and sighed. "Are you going to take off work for this? Like you did for Y2K?"

He gave me a wry smirk. "Not yet."

I groaned in annoyance, wishing I had something to do besides talk to this man or play Pac-Man on my cel phone. "You know we got Stephen King on this flight?"

Unsurprisingly, Benson just frowned and said, "You mean that guy who writes all those Satanic books?"

"Uh, yeah," I said. "Horror books. Ones that don't put me to sleep like yours."

"Don't turn your nose up at the peace of Jesus," he said.

"We're pilots. I'd rather not `_peace_' the airplane into a building."

I would have liked to get Mr. King's autograph, but I really didn't have anything suitable to sign, so I didn't bother.

I checked the plane's diagnostics, then stared absently at the runway as I tried to figure out how I was going to make this relationship with Hattie work.

When Benson started preaching about some news story about kids with guns shooting each other, I told him Joel Osteen was on the plane, which caused him to vacate his chair.

Thank God, I thought.

Still, I had nothing to occupy the time. I had brought nothing to read but an old GQ, Skymall, and someone had walked off with my mini television. I thought about reading Benson's paper, but it lacked funnies or a sports page, and I wasn't a broker. I gave up.

Ordinarily, I would have a copy of _The DaVinci Code_ or its sequel lying around, so I could feign reading it to really get under Benson's skin, but my wife had attended one of those occult seminars at the church, and she'd thrown them into a bonfire.

I hadn't reordered yet, but I planned to.

Since the coffee didn't seem to be working, I belted myself in, leaned back, and took a nap.

When I awoke, I found Benson had already taken off.

"Didn't even tell me we were leaving the airport," I muttered as I looked at the little squares of farmland below.

"Sorry," he said. "While I was talking with Mr. Osteen, the tower sent us a message saying to clear out, and you were fast asleep."

"Mighty white of you."

We flew on in silence for awhile.

"You go to church, don't you?" Benson suddenly asked.

"No," I said. "I sit naked in my back yard and sacrifice goats to Baal."

"You will be judged," he said with a serious expression. "You _will_ be judged."

I just looked away in annoyance. The man made me nauseous.

I kept my conversations with him minimal for the next two hours.

Hattie brought us some first class treats, crab cakes and Einstein bagels, which is considerably better than those crappy bags of peanuts and Biscoff crackers they get in coach.

She offered me a Sprite, but I muttered in her ear about Benson boring me to death, so she agreed to get me coffee instead.

She gave me a quick kiss, then brought in my order. I probably would have been _friendlier_, so to speak, but I didn't want yet another sermon from the peanut gallery.

The coffee didn't help. The monotony on the flight, coupled with the monotonous copilot, resulted in me snoring.

Upon awaking, I fully expected to take over flying for a few hours, for our connection to Phoenix.

Instead, I found the copilot's chair empty, and the nose was dipping at an alarming rate.

The sky looked strange.

Despite being morning, I couldn't see the sun.

A swirling white mass surrounded the plane, cloud-like things that glowed in the dark and seemed to grab at me before turning into a fine mist before the plane's windshield.

The strangeness was the least of my worries.

"Benson!" I screamed as I fought to stabilize the plane. "Benson!"

I got on the PA system. "Benson. Report to the cockpit ASAP."

No answer.

"Benson. Line three. Stat."

Nothing.

I wanted to say "Benson, you bastard, get your ass up here," but I didn't want to destroy the passengers' confidence in me as a pilot.

I set the autopilot controls. "Benson, what the fuck are you doing!"

It was then that I noticed the pile of clothes on his chair.

"Going for the Mile High Club without your clothing? What, have you slipped your cog? At least have the common decency to leave the autopilot on!"

I got up and checked his chair.

He'd not only left his pants and shirt behind, he'd left his underwear, wallet, car keys, and several little silver nuggets.

I picked up one of the nuggets, staring at it for a moment before quickly dropping it in disgust.

Dental fillings. How the hell does one take out their dental fillings without waking people with their screaming?

I heard a tapping sound. It sounded like it were coming from...outside?

When I saw the pale, ghoulish face in the window, I nearly pissed my pants.


	3. Chapter 3: Rapture

The ghastly face vanished from the window as suddenly as it came, making me wonder if I'd even seen it.

I had the plane on autopilot, so I technically could step out, get a drink, take a whiz, and be fine.

It's autopilot, not an android from the future. Planes have wrecked on autopilot.

There was still a chance of fatally colliding with something in midair, so you really can't afford to do things like, say, make out with a stewardess, or get engaged in really long theological debates with Joel Osteen.

First class and coach looked pretty much the way it did when I came in. Such a thing wasn't exactly shocking. People cancel. Sometimes en masse.

The discarded laundry, however...

I leaned over a seat, staring at its contents: An old lady dress, a cross, a pearl necklace, one of those unsexy wire bras, a set of partials, and an odd looking piece of metal with a ball joint.

When I examined the object further, I discovered it to be a replacement hip. I dropped it in surprise.

"They say LSD never leaves your system," the goth rock star was groaning.

"That explains you, perhaps," Mr. King replied. "But it doesn't explain an entire planeload of people vanishing."

I swallowed. How many people had been onboard?

"Isn't it obvious?" Mr. Osteen said. "The rapture happened, and we haven't been taken!"

It looked strange to see sadness and despair on that face instead of a perma-plastic smile, but there it was. The `God has abandoned me' face. A sure sign that hell had frozen over.

The man knelt down on the floor, beating his breast, completely absorbed in prayer.

"Oh God," Mr. King groaned, rubbing his face. "There's one on every flight."

The rock star leaned over his seat. "Wait, isn't that `rapture' thing supposed to happen _after_ the great tribulation?"

Osteen shook his head. He appeared to be weeping.

"No, no. I'm sure of it. All this heavy shit goes down, the faithful suffer all kinds of persecution, and _only then_ does Jesus swoop down and take away all the faithful. I mean, why put it in Revelation if you're just going to disappear before it even happens?"

Joel ignored him, resuming his prayers.

Mr. King furrowed his brow. "Wait. Aren't you the lead singer of that band that wrote that song about how God doesn't exist? _Pray to Your Ego_ or something?"

Goth guy shrugged. "My dad was a preacher."

I stared at him. "You know, I've been wondering what band you play with the moment I stepped on this flight."

"Mental Shrug," he grinned, offering me a hand. "Brian Feng. Sound engineer, lead vocalist."

I shook his hand.

"You should try the _Meh_ album. It's their best work."

I vaguely recalled the fact that Mr. King owned a radio station.

Hearing the smoke alarm in coach going off, I hurried down to see what was happening.

The source of the alarm was a curly haired young man smoking in the middle of the aisle. He wore glasses on his plump freckled face, and a t-shirt depicting a cartoon cat with large breasts. He smoke the cheap kind of cigarettes that smelled like cat shit.

It's been more than twenty years since any airline allowed smoking on flights, with the exclusion of private jets and some rare high profile first class flights. This change had been made for health and safety reasons, hence the lack of ashtrays on all our major passenger planes.

I was about to say something, but some of my passengers were hysterical, frightened, or at least extremely worried about people who, it seemed, had once occupied seats next to them.

"What the hell is going on!" cried a teenaged girl. "What happened to my mother!"

"She went to Cancun," joked a twenty year old guy with slicked hair and an aviator's jacket, who, to my great annoyance, was also smoking.

A heavy set woman with a light brown face and dyed blonde hair tapped me on the shoulder. "What's going on here! Where's my babies!"

I shrugged. "I don't know ma'am. Your guess is as good as mine."

She gave me this look that said "You're the captain, you should know," but I deflected it by turning to face the other passengers. "Did anyone see my copilot go through here?"

I saw people shaking their heads.

"Oh God," the woman gasped. "Then who's flying the plane?"

I raised my hands defensively. "Relax! It's on autopilot! I only came out to get the copilot!"

As if on cue, the plane hit a pocket of turbulence, and everything shook.

"Oh my God!" she screamed. "We're all going to die!"

I raised my hands, maintaining an image of cool authority. "Everyone! Calm down! The flight is under control! We just hit a little bump, routine for flights of this kind." Noticing the stares, I said, "You know what I mean."

"This is just like one of my books!" I heard a voice muttering a few rows behind me.

You'd think there would have been more screaming, being that half the plane had vanished, but human beings are visual screamers. If people see nothing, they have hope that their loved ones might still be out there somewhere, floating in the aether, even those who left pacemakers in their seats.

All we had was a lot of laundry. There were no bodies, nothing to convince them of the irreversibility of death, so I mostly saw expressions of puzzled worriment.

"I can't believe this," said the midget. "Nobody knows what the fuck is going on."

"I think we all know what happened." I felt a pair of clammy hands pressing on my shoulders. "Brothers and sisters," that famous Southern voice said. "Christ has taken the elect to heaven."

He choked down a sob. "People, I have a confession to make. I've been deceiving the world with a feel good spirituality that promises wealth in exchange for donations and prayers. I've been living off the fat of the land while my brother perishes from starvation in the streets, with only meaningless prayers and donation receipts to fill his empty belly.

"Worse, I have left millions of television viewers in a state of spiritual starvation, clinging desperately to a godless prosperity doctrine.

"And that's why my Lord left me here on earth while the faithful departed with him to live forever in paradise."

"Hey!" protested the smoker in the cat shirt. "I like that feel good stuff!"

"You don't understand, Mister, uh..."

"Steve." He took another puff.

"_Steve._" Osteen forced a smile. "Stephen, you don't understand. I should have been warning you all that a life empty of Jesus will lead you to hell. Instead I was too busy trying to avoid the subject to increase viewership and pad my personal bank account."

I heard one of my passengers let out a derisive "Oh."

The black haired youth and the dark wig poking out from the adjacent seat suggested the presence of someone I'd rather not be seeing again.

I watched with disgust as the guy in the back pocketed gold necklaces, an Iphone and fancy watches from nearby seats, but didn't say anything. It wasn't like they'd be using them anytime soon.

"Honestly," Steve said in an awkwardly loud voice, "The fact that you don't preach about hell or Jesus that much is the one reason why I keep listening to you."

"He's Jewish," said an overweight white woman in Hawaiian floral print shirt seated nearby. Her hair was greasy and dark, and her face was a constant mask of unfriendliness.

Osteen responded to her comment by sighing and whispering prayers.

"I agree wholeheartedly," said the midget. "It's disgusting when you guys go around judgmentally threatening people with fire and brimstone just because they don't believe exactly the same thing you do. You're not going to make any converts like that."

"Even if it's the fucking truth!" the preacher snapped, causing all of us to stare at him in shock.

"Wow! The dude cussed!" I heard the guy in the back say.

"I'm sorry," Osteen stammered. "Compromising the truth is what got me into this mess in the first place. What those other preachers told you is the God's honest fact, and now we're going to have to live through the Endtimes because we screwed up."

For a few seconds, it got so silent that it seemed he had everyone convinced.

"I saw a bright lights passing by the windows," the guy in the jacket said. "You're only assuming it's Jesus. What if all these people were just abducted?"

"Or a government experiment!" said the fat gal.

"Or spontaneous human combustion," the midget suggested.

I noticed the author pushing himself past the evangelist.

Glancing at my badge, he said, "Mr. Steele, I have to ask you a very important question. Do you remember flying through an aurora a few hours ago?"

I stared at him. "What?"

"Before all these people disappeared from your plane, did you or did you not fly through an aurora borealis?"

"Uh, no," I said. "We're in the wrong part of the country for that."

He took a little notepad out of his pocket and jotted down my response. "To which the captain said, `Wrong part of the country.'"

"We weren't anywhere near Illinois," the joker in the back commented.

I frowned at the author. "You're not going to put that in a book, are you?"

He gave me this look that said "I might."

"I'm thinking I don't do enough nonfiction. I think, if I live to tell about it, this will be the greatest nonfiction story I've ever published." He flipped a page in his notepad. "Second question. Were you asleep before all this happened?"

"Yeah?"

He jotted this down as well. "And the other pilot is now missing."

"Yes."

I rolled my eyes. "You don't seriously think a bunch of flying balls with teeth ate everything, do you?"

"Honestly, Mr. Steele, I don't know what to think. I'm just going by the old Sherlock Holmes trope. `Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'"

To my absolute relief, I found Hattie strolling up the aisle to me, giving me a wink and a smile.

She gave Steve a stern look. "Sir, smoking is not allowed on our flights. Please extinguish your cigarette."

"In case you didn't notice," the man replied, "This is a cause for celebration. Judging by all the crosses in the seats, it seems all the people of untrue faith have been sent to the grave, and my people have inherited the earth."

"Sorry to break it to you," the midget said. "But I'm not your people."

"And I am definitely not," said the man in the turban.

"Are you sure?" he said. "You might be part Jewish and not know it."

The midget rolled his eyes.

"You can celebrate all you want," Hattie said. "But in respect to other passengers, I must insist you extinguish your cigarette."

"Who's going to make me?" he said. "I don't see any Air Marshal around."

"Steve!" the fat gal hissed.

Hattie snatched the cigarette out of his mouth and stomped it. Not the proper thing to be doing to company property, but at this point I figured it didn't matter that much.

Steve flinched, but didn't resist.

She whirled, marching down to our little joker in the peanut gallery.

Unlike Steve, he had the sense to put his out before she got there.

A gray haired, well muscled gentleman in a karate shirt stood up. "Here's my two cents," he nearly mumbled. "Reality is a consensual illusion, and collectively as passengers, we have been convincing ourselves that his consensual illusion has changed.

"It's possible that the sets around us have always been empty, and we've only been deluding ourselves with the fantasy of someone occupying them.

"Or else, due to our collective negative vibrations bouncing off one another, we have caused the other passengers to vanish from existence.

"Either that, or they are still sitting in their seats, like we've seen them before, and we are only tricking our minds into believing the contrary."

The midget frowned. "So you're saying that reality is an illusion, and we're only imagining them gone?"

"No," he said. "What I'm saying is human consciousness has advanced to a level where it's beginning to transcend matter. It's possible the other passengers have attained such a high elevation of consciousness that they translated themselves directly into the Godhead or Oversoul.

"Or, more likely, perhaps they translated themselves back on the Cosmic Wheel to undergo a new series of reincarnations."

"I took this guy's class once," the guy in the jacket laughed. "I liked his lectures better than the katas."

The old guy smirked. "Jon Haring, right?"

"You got it!"

"Guys," I said. "It's been fun, but I need to pilot this plane. Let me know when you've found my copilot or the missing people."

As I was passing down the aisle in the direction of the cockpit, an elderly woman stopped me.

"Excuse me, sir," she said. "Have you seen my husband? He left for the bathroom and I haven't seen him since."

I shook my head. "I can go check, but I can't make any promises."

She handed me a pair of pants. "Could you give this to him when you go? I'm afraid he went without his clothes."

I sighed. "Fine, fine. I'll check."

I hurried down the aisle, pushing past my inconsiderate smoker, who hadn't returned to his seat, ignoring jokes about me not going to pilot the plane like I said.

I didn't expect much, but I thought I'd check the bathrooms just to humor the woman.

At the back of the plane, I knocked on the men's room door, which still said `occupied.'

Hearing no response, I used a special key and turned it to vacant.

It wasn't.

Inside the cramped little compartment, below the stainless steel toilet, was the pale naked corpse of an old man.

The man looked like photographs I'd seen of radiation victims at Hiroshima, his flesh scarred and blistered like an overmicrowaved hot dog.

It looked like I found the husband.


	4. Chapter 4: Hell Plane

Since we had no air marshal, and presumably no doctors onboard, I knelt down next to the body, checking the pulse.

Nothing. Big surprise there. My hands came away coated in a slimy layer of something melted I didn't even want to think about. I scrubbed my hands with sanitizer.

"Did you find anyone?" I heard the evangelist saying behind me.

I frowned. "In a manner of speaking."

I brought him closer to the bathroom so he could see. "Is this is the rapture, what is that?" I said, pointing to the irradiated looking corpse.

Osteen responded by quoting some passage from Revelation about the wicked being struck by disease, which really didn't have anything to do with our current predicament.

"Dude," Jon said as he stared over my shoulder. "This isn't a rapture, this is a freaking X-File!" The tone in his voice was one of amusement, not fright.

The plane shook violently, and I heard a sea of inhuman sounding voices moaning and singing tunelessly all around the plane. The windows flashed with brilliant light.

Time to get back in the pilot's seat.

"I knew it!" Osteen cried. "This plane is flying straight to hell!"

He dropped to his knees, kneading his fingers together. "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy."

As I passed through coach, I glanced at the windows.

I didn't see any angry fires, nor did I see the spirits of the damned. All I saw were...waves, streams of liquidy golden light, like rainbow geysers spouting from the surface of the sun.

I turned my head just as a brilliant burst of light as intense as a sun flare filled every surface of the cabin.

When the light normalized and I resumed staggering back toward the cockpit, I suddenly noticed that all the seats were full.

With dead radiation burned corpses.

Maybe this _was_ the plane to hell.

Someone screamed that they couldn't see. Apparently the flare could cause retinal damage.

I was only one man, and not a doctor, so I pushed onward. Blind people and corpses were nothing compared to a potentially catastrophic plane wreck.

When I got to my chair, I discovered a dead body in the copilot's seat.

I just shook my head and checked the controls.

Damn solar flare.

The compass, gyroscope, radio, everything. It was all fubar. I would have to eyeball the flight until the disruption tapered off. It was a wonder the autopilot hadn't flown us into a building, or worse.

The banshee wailing continued as the solar flare rippled all around me.

The cockpit door came open, and Hattie stepped through.

Hattie.

I sighed. I was going to die with all this deception on my conscience, I thought. She still didn't know.

The stewardess seated herself on the armrest of Copilot Benson's chair, careful to avoid touching the body.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi."

I swallowed. "Hattie, I don't think we have very long to live. There's something I want to get off my chest, and I've been meaning to tell you about it for a long time."

She nodded. "You're married. I know."

My jaw dropped. "You knew?"

She gave me this look like I were stupid. "You're a terrible liar. That bullshit with the ring? Those clumsy explanations? Or how about the fact that you didn't want to go out with me at such suspicious times? February 25th, for example. I was _this close_ to saying congratulations, but I wasn't sure if it were the anniversary or your kid's birthday. You come to work looking dead tired a few weeks before may, like you've been helping junior cram for graduation or something, and then you blurt names like Chloe and Irene."

I stared at her, speechless. "You knew. All this time. You knew and you didn't tell me."

"You're the one that kept trying to hide it."

I felt like my brain was short circuiting. "B-but why would you put up with me? Why would you keep coming onto me if you knew?"

She leaned closer. "Maybe I enjoy a challenge. Maybe I like playing games. Maybe now that the truth is out, we can play some new ones."

And then she kisses me on the mouth.

Her eyes widen, and she suddenly pulls away. "Plane."

I stared at her, wondering if this were the new game. "Plane?"

She jabbed a finger at the window. "Plane!" she screamed.

I turned my head right and saw the Frontier Airlines jet carrier barreling straight for the nose of our craft.

"Fuck...me."

"Take care of the plane first," Hattie blurted.


	5. Chapter 5: Turbulence

I radioed the other plane, telling them to turn away.

I didn't believe this was any sort of rapture, so I figured the other plane should still be inhabited.

I was answered only by static.

I tried the emergency channel and any other good channel I could think of, but no one answered.

Hattie had a pair of binoculars out, staring into the other cockpit. She gasped.

"Oh my God! The pilots are dead! Both of them!"

I took the binoculars from her and had a look.

I sucked in my breath. It seemed we were not the only ones with irradiated corpses.

I got on the P.A. system, telling the passengers to get to their seats and buckle up for some turbulence, then I pushed down on the control yoke, forcing the plane into a dive.

In action movies, the pilot typically flies up as high as he can to dodge the oncoming plane, but this was real life, and such a move is actually dangerous and irresponsible. A thousand feet above the ground, as long as the landing gears are retracted, you have a better chance of flying safely underneath then flying over the roof and tail fin. Especially if the autopilot is heading upwards.

And then there's the economic considerations. It costs more fuel to force the engines upwards than it does to glide down, and the air masks don't deploy because you're not thinning the cabin air pressure any.

If the other plane were breaking up, well, that would be different.

"You should climb!" Hattie cried. "Over the top!"

"Look," I said. "What's a safer way to get into a blocked lane on a freeway, overtake and pass the other car going ninety miles an hour, or slowing down and waiting for him to pass?"

She frowned. "What if the plane automatically dives and it hits you? What if there's debris?"

"What if?" I shrugged.

Checking the radar carefully to make sure we had a clear path, I swooped down beneath the cloud layer, boosting the engines to get us out from under the other plane.

After a couple minutes enduring the panicked shouts of passengers, we escaped the other jet's shadow, and apparently just in time. The plane had begun a dive of its own.

I radioed base with a mayday regarding the situation, but I was only answered by static.

"Remember that _Twilight Zone_ episode where they fly the plane back in time?" Hattie said.

"Is that the one with the clay dinosaurs?"

"Yeah?"

"What about it?"

"You think we went back in time?"

I laughed. "And what is that solar flare? What were those bodies? Why was there another plane?"

"I...don't know."

I radioed base again.

Hattie sniffed. "I think someone is smoking again."

I glanced at her, thinking about what she'd said to me when we were about to wreck. This didn't seem to be a good time to broach the subject, so I let it go.

She smirked at me, stepping out of the cockpit.

I tried base a few more times then gave it up, deciding it best to find a nearby airport or air field and wait out the storm there.

The GPS was on the fritz, or I would have used it. The database listed all the possible airports, but didn't say where our plane was.

I only had a couple hours worth of fuel, so I couldn't afford to wait for the signal to clear up.

I tried a general signal, in hopes that someone with a nearby air field would clear a landing strip for me. No results.

I knew it wouldn't work, but just for shits and giggles I tried dialing base with my cel phone, but that also was useless.

My best bet, it would seem, would be to circle the area and compare it to what I saw on the GPS map and try to triangulate an airport that way.

When I had awakened from my nap at the beginning of this nightmare, I assumed we were somewhere near Denver, but the landscape below me looked more like Kansas.

How long had I been asleep? Had we stopped in Denver and were on the way back already?

No air fields within sight. At least, not yet.

"Captain," I heard Hattie saying over the intercom. "We've got a situation."

"I've got to land this plane," I paged back. "Can't it wait?"

"Sorry, Captain. She's got the Air Marshal's gun."

I slammed my fist into my armrest. "Dammit!"

I hadn't bothered with it before, but the plane has a CCTV. Switching it on, I could see we had a hostage situation. The woman with the vanished children had Sheryl by gunpoint.

A movie hero would go back to negotiate, but writers apparently haven't taken September eleventh into account. It's why we have special locks on the cockpit door.

I didn't stay at my post just to spare my life, though that was certainly part of it. I had to think about what damage terrorists could do with the controls.

"This is Captain Rayford Steele," I said over the P.A. "I can see you with my cameras. Before you try to harm Sheryl, I'd like to remind you of the fragility of this airplane's hull. The lightweight shell that allows you easy flight miles above the ground is the same one that could rapidly depressurize if a stray shot or-" I wanted to say "brain fragments," but that would sound like I didn't care. "Shell fragments puncture it, so unless you want to get sucked out of the plane at ten thousand feet, I'd suggest you put that thing away."

"Turn the plane around!" I saw her mouthing in a direction not quite facing the camera.

I wanted to say "calm down", but that command never works on anyone unless you have a syringe full of tranquilizer handy.

"This plane isn't turning anywhere," I said. "We've only got a couple hours of fuel left. Our primary objective right now is finding a place to land. I promise, once we do land, I'll make some calls and get whatever you need sorted out. There's a lot of unexpected things going on right now, and I don't have any answers for any of them, so please be respectful of the crew and passengers and take your seat until we land."

The P.A. speakers were shitty back there, but I saw passengers shouting clarifications.

The woman still looked upset, but she shakily let go of the stewardess, retreating into her chair.

She did not, however, let go of the gun.

I flew around for an hour, but I could find nothing but farms, houses and factories.

It was only when the fuel needle edged towards empty that the sun flare faded and the GPS showed a blip.

The closest air field was McConnell AFB, and we weren't going to make it on our current fuel reserve.

I had only one option in front of me. I was going to have to land on a farm.

Not an ideal place to land.

Although okay for being broad and relatively flat, there were fence posts, combines, silos and houses, with freeways in between. Any number of those could rip the shell of the plane to pieces and cause catastrophic injuries to passengers and innocent bystanders. A cornfield, with all its leafy cover, could be a mine field full of hidden danger.

Still, as the gauge crept down to empty, it seemed we had no choice. Whatever they had done in between the time I had my catnap and the people disappearing, it wasn't refueling. Unless there was a leak somewhere that I didn't know about...

Either way, we needed to land soon.

I tilted the nose down, slowing our descent as I aimed for a flat looking pasture in the distance.

I steered for a path clear of a blue ranch house I saw, scattering frightened cattle as I roared lower and lower.

The ground came nearer. I lowered the landing gears.

What followed was a chaotic jumble.

The gears got caught in a fence, uprooting the poles and ripping out the barbed wire. I couldn't see it, but I presume it wrapped around the tires. A clothesline got in there somewhere.

We hit a tractor occupied by a radiation corpse, and the plane skewed at an angle.

I could hear something screeching against the metal for a dozen yards as I fought to keep the right wing from plowing into the dirt.

Then we hit the cornfield, one I didn't see from the air. For a long time, I could see nothing but a mass of blenderized green salad and corn pods.

And then the landing gears touched down.

Worst landing I've ever experienced in my life.

The moment the wheels hit the ground, it was like we were driving through a quarry.

It was all banging and booming and fighting the control yoke.

A chicken bounced off the window with a squawk and a residue of blood and feathers.

The salad fell away and I saw a barren field, stubbly from the harvester.

Ahead, there was a barn, but our momentum had slowed enough that I didn't think it a concern.

On the stubble, the bumping lessened, but it was still like driving on a quarry, jarring us with each bump.

We hit a ditch.

I braced for impact, expecting the front leg to snap and send the front end barreling to the ground, but it only bounced out with a thunderous bang and a jerk that damn near broke my neck.

The barn came closer.

And closer.

The nose hit first, the front end demolishing the flimsy partition above the double doors, and part of the side, as I hadn't exactly been aiming for it until I realized the collision was inevitable.

The wings cut through the walls like knives, but they were designed for flight, so they also snapped off at key joints about halfway in.

At last the plane stopped.

Activating the P.A., I picked up the microphone and said, "Is everyone okay back there?"

I was answered by applause.


	6. Chapter 6: We're From the Country

From the cockpit, it looked like you could almost jump into a haybale and land uninjured, but I decided to err on the side of caution. We used the inflatable emergency slides to get off the plane.

A couple complained about hayfever, but mostly they seemed to be glad to touch ground again.

The sun flares had faded out, replaced with a bright blue. No clouds.

How much time had passed? I wasn't sure. My watch said it was noon, but it felt later than that.

We were surrounded on three sides with cornfields, with a mob of cattle congregated nervously among the stalks. A yellow house with a septic tank stood behind us, beyond which I could see a dirt road, and a brown empty field.

"Oh God, not again!" I heard a voice crying in a New England accent.

I whirled around. Apparently the big black woman had progressed beyond threatening stewardesses and moved on to celebrities. She now had a gun pointed at Mr. King's temple, her other hand tightening around his neck.

The man was no stranger to assassination attempts, I thought. Hence his lack of surprise.

"What did I do this time?" he grunted. "Did I steal your thoughts? Or are you trying to cash in on an English paper I supposedly read?"

"Shut up," the woman barked.

"Ma'am," he stammered. "Look. I'm not really a Satanist. Underneath all the trappings, I'm just an ordinary red blooded Protestant like everyone else-"

"I said shut up!" she yelled.

Something jingled when my foot bumped it. Looking down, I found it to be a dog leash on a post, secured with concrete. Next to it I found a food dish with a half eaten Pop Tart inside. A dirt covered Barbie doll lay before the dish. Whoever they were, I thought. They weren't the only ones that fed their canines toaster pastries as a treat.

Not giving it a second thought, I faced the woman with my hands spread empty. "Look, ma'am..."

"Ma'am nothing!" she spat. "It's Rhonda Hines!"

"Right," I said. "Ms. Hines. Look. I already told you, I don't know where your kids are. I'll help you any way I can if you'll just put down that gun."

"Look around the plane," King gasped. "I'm sure there's at least a couple bodies that match your children's description, if you look hard enough."

Rhonda's eyes narrowed. The gun pressed deeper into his temple. "You really want a bullet in your head, don't you?"

"Not...especially. I'm just being realistic. Go check the seats again. Do you really think God chose your rugrats to be His special exception?"

She clicked back the hammer on the gun.

"Don't do it," John said. "We'll never find out how the housewife and the psycho astronaut get off Mars."

"Christ," the hostage muttered. "Is this really what my life amounts to?"

"No offense," I said. "But he has a good idea. Maybe your kids are still onboard somewhere...in some form or another. How about we search the plane? I don't have any answers, but I'll help you. Just put down the gun."

She frowned at me, slowly turning the gun away from the author's head.

A second later, the old gentleman swooped in, pinning her arm as he snatched the gun away. The pistol went off, shattering the upstairs window in a nearby house.

He calmly tucked the gun in his waistband, muttering, in his usual dry monotone, "Are we done, or would you like me to demonstrate a few moves involving pressure points?"

She shakily backed away. The other passengers clapped appreciatively.

I took the woman's hand. "C'mon, Ms. Hines. Rhonda. Let's go back in the plane and check the seats. Who knows? Maybe they're hiding somewhere."

Someone muttered "I doubt it," but I ignored them.

I scrambled up the slide, lowering the emergency ladder. Rhonda was overweight and out of shape, so I had to help her up the last half.

And then we searched the plane, top to bottom, familiarizing ourselves with the secret compartment the pilots used to sleep in while not on duty. We looked in the cargo hold, the cockpit, the restrooms, but we didn't find her children.

The woman broke down in tears. "I just don't understand. Where'd they go? Did someone throw them out the emergency door?"

"The door wasn't opened," I said. "We would have heard an alarm, or someone at least would have felt the air and stuff being sucked out."

"What if someone stuffed them in a suitcase?"

I grimaced. "I'm not sure they'd survive something like that, but we can check."

So we climbed back into the cargo hold, opening all the suitcases that looked big enough to contain a child.

Due to the amount of time we were taking, I saw the others joining me in the search through the luggage, pulling out the ones that presumably belonged to them.

When we got to the smaller luggage, I said, "If they're in these, they're probably dead. It's the only way they'd fit."

Crying, Rhonda dug through the ones we already searched, as if a pair of pants and a shirt would conceal an object of that size that effectively.

She sighed. "You really think this is the rapture?"

I shook my head. "I might not know that much about the bible, but my wife is a self proclaimed expert, and she describes the rapture very differently. I really don't think that this is it."

"What do you think it is, then?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just don't know."

"But you're a pilot."

"I'm a commercial jet pilot. It's U.S. Air, not U.S. Air Force. I haven't set in a military office for ten years. The closest I've come is TSA. The only thing close to a conspiracy we've done is reviewing policies for carry-on luggage. Are little baby sharks in glass bottles a threat to a pilot's life? How about containers of breast milk?"

She laughed. "And what did you decide?"

I shrugged. "It's on all the posted signs. They decided for me. Our participation is just a meaningless ritual with no real impact on the process. Like voting."

We both fell silent for a moment.

"Maybe I don't deserve to go to heaven," the woman said as she opened another bag.

"Oh?" I said conversationally, though I really didn't care.

She sighed. "You see, this choir director. Terry Schultz. I was angry at her. She let other people do solos on the songs I liked, but she never let me do it. Always so lazy. Always picking the popular, so-called `talented people' to sing instead of me. Eventually I got fed up. Tried to get even."

"What did you do?" I asked. "Kill her?"

She laughed and shook her head. "I wasn't _that_ far away from the Lord, but I was close. Kinda sad and ironic, getting revenge in the Lord's house..."

Rhonda looked grim. "What I did was enter the board of elders. Put on a show. Acted like I gave a damn about shit I really didn't. All to get control of the board of music." She idly pushed over a suitcase. "All that to fire on silly woman."

"Why didn't you just go to a different church?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I was stupid, I guess. Didn't really think about it. Story of my life, now that I look back on it. Not thinking."

I shook my head, wondering if I were stepping into dangerous territory by replying, but I did anyway. "It's never too late to start."

To my relief, she only frowned and closed a suitcase.

"Are you a communist or something?" she asked.

I smirked. "What makes you say that?"

"You said that voting doesn't matter. Sounds like you don't believe in democracy."

"Don't get me wrong," I said. "I love the concept of the constitution, but there's so many things that get thrust upon U.S. citizens that we don't have a say in, like mandatory insurance laws. Either the votes aren't asked for when they do these things, or we live among millions of idiots who don't know how to vote. What I say doesn't matter anymore."

She shot me an icy glare. "How do you know I'm not one of those so-called `idiots'?"

That sure explains a lot, I thought. A thousand of you at the voting booths, and only one of me.

I gave her a nervous smile. With her history of violent behavior, I was not going to say what I thought out loud. "Look, all I meant was that I'm nobody, so if this is a conspiracy, I'm not part of it."

She scowled for a moment, then relaxed.

"What do we do now? How are we going to find my babies?"

"We need to get in contact with the nearest airport or air force base."

Rhonda suddenly looked angry. "I thought you said-"

I raised a defensive hand. "I'm not saying I'm associated with the Air Force. I'm just saying that maybe some military aid might help us."

"They've done enough damage," she groaned.

"What about the police, then?" I said. "Maybe we can call them."

She nodded.

"Let's find a phone."

The nearest house, the one with the newly broken back window, was a two story building with a gabled roof and cracked vinyl siding.

The front porch was enclosed in wooden pillars in a faux Roman style, with latticework and a swing. I noticed there was no fence to keep kids away from the road, reminding me of the tragic opening to _Pet Sematary_. I supposed I couldn't be responsible for everyone's foolishness.

We knocked several times and rang the bell, but no one answered.

Jon took out a knife, sticking it in the crack between the door and the lock. "Allow me."

The knife was in the hold, not carry-on, I realized, but it made me uneasy that he had it.

"We're not breaking and entering," I protested. "It's bad enough that we-"

Click. With a grin, the young man pushed the door open, stepping inside.

The interior of the house looked like a Country Living magazine. A single staircase with a fat balustrade of polished wood descended from the upper floor, ending in a stylish spiral, and underneath it, I could see a little bench and cushion, and a table with a phone and flowers. A well organized tool room stood a few paces beyond. All very tidy and elegant.

To one side I could see a small dining room with a polished table of fine mahogany. The other archway led into a laundry room, a little less tidy, clothes hanging all over the washers.

The outfits looked strange, some of them looking like outfits a prostitute might wear, but I thought nothing of it. Whatever floats your boat, I figured. The laundering of dog items also seemed strange, but Irene did that frequently back home.

Irene. I resolved to call her ASAP.

But first...

"Hello?" I yelled. "I'm Rayford Steele! We've had a plane accident, and we need assistance!"

No answer.

"Hello! Is anyone home!" I paused. "If someone's here, I'd like to borrow your phone!"

John picked up the receiver, dialed a number, then frowned. "9-1-1 is busy," he said, hanging up.

I gave him a scolding frown, but I couldn't be too harsh on him. He was somewhat helpful.

Hattie followed us in, checking the laundry room.

She picked up a few articles, staring at them. "Is this what little girls are wearing these days? Good God!"

"Maybe it's a stripper midget," Jon joked as he peered over her shoulder.

"I suppose anything's possible," I frowned.

And then I noticed the child sized nail marks on the polished wooden steps.

The alarm bells weren't quite ringing in my head just yet. Lord knows I've had a few days where I've had to teach one of my kids a lesson. Not frequently, mind you, but there's been a few times where the belt came out and they clawed the wall trying to get away.

Still, it made me uneasy.

"Hello?" I called as I crept up the steps. "Rayford Steele! U.S. Air! I'm a pilot! Is someone up there?"

A muffled animal sound answered me. I figured they must keep the pooch in the bathroom.

"You want the gun?" Jon whispered behind me. "I got it back if you want it."

I quickly snatched it out of his hands. "I didn't see you go outside."

"I didn't."

And then I hear a voice in the dining room yelling a muted hello. It startles me until I realize it's only our onboard karate instructor.

The whimpering sounds got louder as I reached the top of the stairs, probably because the creaky hardwood floor alerted everyone in the vicinity of our presence.

I opened one of the doors, peering in.

A bedroom, one with a four poster waterbed, a flat panel TV and several laptops and computer monitors. The framed Disney Princess prints looked out of place in such an adult setting, but I thought maybe the child was spoiled.

I checked the room across the hall. Bathroom. Fine porcelain and marble juxtaposed with framed images from Disney's _Cars_ and _Frozen_. Still, the towels and fixtures looked premium. The sink even had a decorative brass leaf to disguise the drain. "This must be a big time farmer," I muttered to myself.

Jon, in the meantime, had been poking in the other rooms.

"Find the dog yet?" I called.

"No, but this guy's got a regular movie st-what the fuck?"

He let out an uncomfortable laugh. "God."

"What?" I said, frowning at his flabbergasted, uneasy expression.

"Dude," he said, waving me closer. "Come look at this."

He wasn't being funny. I saw no sign of mirth in his face. I hurried over quickly, expecting to see a dead body.

I found something far worse. I took one look and wanted to throw up.

"What kind of sick bastard..."

We had stumbled upon the studio of a child pornographer.

The owner of the house had top of the line equipment. Fancy photographer's lights, professional artist's backdrops, and a complete editing suite.

In front of the hangings, a little girl sat cross legged on a model stand, unclothed save for a dog collar and a pair of fuzzy pointed ears fastened around her head. Her wrists and ankles were fastened with zip ties, her mouth fitted with a ball gag.

I thought of my daughter, and immediately wanted to track down this so-called `artist' and blow a hole in the sick fucker's head.

I looked around and saw that there was no need. Our photographer was now a bloated radiation mummy propped up in a director's chair. Still, I was sorely tempted to desecrate the remains.

I borrowed Jon's knife and cut the girl free from her restraints.

When I removed the ball gag, the first words out of her mouth were, "Have I been a good puppy?"

And then she wagged her tail.

An honest to God prehensile tail growing out from the end of her spinal column.


End file.
